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A new strain of bird flu which kills 38 per cent of those it infects has been identified by the deputy chief medical officer for England as the most likely candidate to spark a worldwide flu pandemic.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England with special responsibility for emergency preparedness and pandemic planning, told the Telegraph that the virus concerning him and others most was H7N9, a flu virus circulating in poultry in China.

Scientists across the world are on high alert for what the World Health Organisation (WHO) has dubbed “disease X” - a newly emerging pathogen that could prove as destructive as the 1918 Spanish flu which killed between 50 and 100m people...

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